The Ethiopian Labour Movement - Trade Unions, Collective Action, and Contestation, 1960-2020

This book offers a comprehensive history of the Ethiopian labour movement, exploring the impact of trade unions and workers militancy from the 1960s onwards. The author analyses the sharp variation in the orientation and vicissitudes of the labour movement over time, and how these have affected labour conditions and wages. Drawing from new data gathered through extensive archival research in Ethiopia and abroad, this book is the first of its kind. It presents new datasets on strikes, unrest and wage levels, shedding light on how capitalist labour and industrial relations have developed in Ethiopia. Addressing a huge gap in the literature on African labour movements, this book makes a significant contribution to debates on trade unionism, workers agency and wage determination in peripheral capitalist settings, and challenges existing assumptions through detailed investigation.

List of contents

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: The Labour Movement in Imperial Ethiopia: Emergence and Ascent, 1960-1974.- Chapter 3: The Labour Movement in Revolutionary and Socialist Ethiopia: High Tide and Collapse, 1974-1991.- Chapter 4: The Labour Movement in the Federal Republic: New Beginnings, 1991-2020.- Chapter 5: The International Dimension.- Chapter 6: Militant Practices and Effects: Strikes and Wages.- Chapter 7: Conclusions.

About the author

Samuel Andreas Admasie is based at the International Institute of Social History in the Netherlands. Previously, he studied Political Science at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and African Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He has also worked as a research advisor at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and is on the editorial board of the journal, Labor History.

Product details

• Authors: Samuel Andreas Admasie
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English, German
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 01.12.2024, delayed
• EAN: 9783031728402
• ISBN: 978-3-0-3172840-2
• No. of pages: 324
• Illustrations: XVII, 324 p. 105 illus., 9 illus. in color.
• Series: Labour in History and Society
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Geschichte, Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Afrikanische Geschichte, Social History, income, Wages, Economic history, Trade Unions, auseinandersetzen, Industrial Relations, Political Economy, African History, Modern History, Strikes, Labor History, Workers' agency, Capitalist labour, Labour unrest, Ethiopian history, African labour history, Peripheral Capitalism, Labour movements, Wage labour, Labour conditions, Wage determination, Ethiopian trade unions, Imperial Ethiopia